Issue 1 Downtime

Jubilee was sitting on the podium, waiting for the team members to show up. And not looking nervous. Not at all.

And Will came in, in uniform, having missed the last world-ending-problem!

Gideon sat in the briefing room looking a bit stiff and uncomfortable, still not at 100% but attending nonetheless.

Stephanie strode into the briefing room wearing a sundress, and smoothing her hair back into something less resembling a bird's nest. She'd been on the far end of campus and had decided to shave some time off her trip by shifting and running the distance.

Melody walked into the briefing room with a slight limp, the faintest remnants of a black eye lingering on her face. She pulled out a small, knockoff Moleskine notebook and a pen from her purse and set it on the table in front of her.

Dr. Bowen was off to the side of the main podium, representing the interests of those faculty members less combat-oriented.

As always, he kept an open notepad and a pen at the ready, a concerned look on his face.

Bear entered, taking a seat near the front. She was wearing her regular black uniform with yellow and purple highlights, noticeably silent, hoping Rachel would be there.

Rick took a seat close to the front, his eyes glued onto his smartphone while he waited for the meeting to begin.

Brett also came in, in uniform, glancing around nervously as he took a seat.

Rachel slipped into the seat next to Bear Did I miss anything? she asked, keeping it mental to avoid disturbing the others.

Isabel slipped into the back. She'd been sent to take notes, so that they could find out what the infirmary might get hit with in the way of injuries.

Rachel O'Brien wrote:Rachel slipped into the seat next to Bear Did I miss anything? she asked, keeping it mental to avoid disturbing the others.

"Not yet." Bear responded, turning and giving her a kiss on the cheek, glad she was recovered enoughnto be there.

"Thanks for coming here, guys." Jubilee said "Sorry for the short notice, but a potentially serious situation has developed, and we need all hands on deck. So take a seat, and I'll lay it out for you."

Cal, meanwhile, was lounging in the back row, listening while a game of solitaire played in a corner of his vision.

"Some of you may have noticed...thank you for joining us." Jubilee said, as Kyra, Chloe and a few other stragglers came into the room "Sit down, I don't want to repeat myself."

I wonder what crawled up her ass? Kyra thought as she sat down. The tense mood of the room was making her irritable.

Blushing, Chloe sat down, so flustered that she didn't notice that she'd sat down next to Melody.

Melody stiffened slightly at Chloe's choice of seat, but tried to brush it off. She gave her a tight lipped smile and a nod of greeting.

Renko took a seat next to Stephanie not entirely sure what he was doing there, but still was there.

Aiden had limped into the room and taken a seat at the back of the room.

Tommy joined, too! Why not!

And Lora was there, too. Sitting next to Gideon already. Not at all like the slackers coming in late.

Chloe smiled back hesitantly, and then sunk down into her chair, trying to avoid attracting any more attention.

Stephanie smiled at Renko and gave his thigh an affectionate and reassuring squeeze.

The doors slid open and Agent Pete Wisdom, MI-13, came in, as cocky and sure of himself as ever. "Think I'll drive for this one, eh luv?" he said as he walked toward the podium from the doors, which (as usual for his briefings) gave the faintly audible click of the magnetic locks sealing themselves.

"Be my guest." Jubilee said "I hate being the bearer of bad news."

"Leave it to the professionals, then," Wisdom said, stepping up behind the podium. He pressed a button on it, and the stock X-Corp file of Sam clicked up onto the display screen. "As of three days ago, your Illustrious Headmistress has been completely off the grid. Not at home, not at work, just vanished without so much as a 'Dear John' letter. That much I'm sure you lovelies have picked up on due to the sudden drop in redheaded bombshells strutting around the school."

Will nodded, rapt.

Hesitantly, Chloe raised her hand "Has anyone gone looking for her? She can't have just vanished, can she?"

Wisdom stopped for a moment, looking at the ceiling. "Now... why didn't I bloody think of that," he said in an exageratedly relieved voice. "Crisis bloody over, now that British Intelligence has been given the novel idea of knocking her up before declaring a sodding emergency."

"That wasn't quite what I meant...." Chloe whispered, looking horribly embarrassed.

"Evidence items two, three, and four: These blighters that you were kind enough to kick into the next century," he said, clicking a button and causing grainy pictures of evil Simon, Gid, and Will to pop up on the screen. "Three blighters from the cliched 'evil' universe. As we remember, they popped in thanks to Dr. Bloody Tomorrow messing with reality, along with a lot of other poor souls who came popping in through holes in reality all over the place."

"But Professor McManus wasn't anywhere near the stadium..." Sara whispers to Will.

Melody rubbed her temples in exasperation.

God damnit. Not more of this reality bending horseshit. Evil futures, evil parallel universes. Can't we find a place that is filled with puppies and fucking rainbows?

John raised a hand.

"And then there's the double of Professor Weaver that showed up the day of the stadium attack. Has our Weaver been missing as well?"

"Glad someone's been paying attention. Getting to that. Now... this is a distribution pattern of all trackable avian life in London a few days ago," he said, a map of London popping up, and a haze of multicolored points of light appearing over it. "And this is the movement patterns of all birds the size of, oh say, large bloody crows." A much smaller amount of dots turned suddenly dark blue. "Now... on the last day she was seen, this is what we pick up."

On the map, the haze just sort of lay over London, the dots swirling like you'd expect birds' flight patterns to move. Then, at one point, the blue points started to just appear and flow in numbers from a certain point across London. "There we go. And tracking surveilance cameras along this path, we manage to come up with this shot." He clicked a button again, and in the corner of the screen, a picture of Naliah's double, carrying Nailah. It was a rather one-in-a-million shot, as her flight brought her JUST within range of whatever camera it was to get a good shot, but the results were rather clear.

Gasp murmur!

Ronnie furrowed her brow. British Intelligence monitored bird flight patterns? The idea that they monitored every possible variable made her feel a little claustrophobic. But now was not the time to speak out about such things, there was work to be done.

Simon had been standing near the back of the room. Ever since he'd seen his face plastered on the news as a terrorist he'd been avoiding being seen in public, even on the campus. But, the call went out so he had to come. When the conversation got a little more specific, and spying a spot of pink in the sea of heads, he quietly slipped into the seat on the other side of Chloe, saying nothing.

Chloe reached over and squeezed Simon's hand, but didn't say anything else, her face a mask of worry.